Insects are both a mild annoyance and a necessary part of the animal kingdom and now scientists have devised the most detailed genetic tree for them.
According to Reuters, authors of a study published in the journal Science looked at 1,478 genes from 144 to account for all the main insect families. The genetic tree traces insects' lineages back half a billion years.
"Insects are the most species-rich organisms on earth. They are of immense ecological, economic and medical importance and affect our daily lives, from pollinating our crops to vectoring diseases," study lead-author Bernhard Misof, of the Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig in Bonn, Germany, said in a press release. "We can only start to understand the enormous species richness and ecological importance of insects with a reliable reconstruction of how they are related."
He noted that insects have a profound effect on the world, given their role in the food chain and their place in the animal kingdom.
"Two-thirds of all known animal species are insects," Misof told Reuters. "They are the important players in terrestrial ecosystems, together with plants."
The international team of researchers placed the first insect at 480 million years ago, about 70 million years before the oldest known insect fossil.
"Until now, we didn't have a good understanding of how these diverse groups of insects are related to each other," study co-author Akito Kawahara, assistant curator of Lepidoptera at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said in the release. "Many insects important to everyday life and scientific research were included in the study, such as agricultural pests, vectors of disease and pollinators. This study provides a foundation for future study of insects. For example, if we want to understand the genetics of how silk is produced, we must first understand how silk worms evolved over time."
